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Saturday, December 7, 2013

Guest Post on Fresh Fiction: Why I write -- and read -- Urban Fantasy

I recently had the pleasure of attending the Southern Magic Readers' Luncheon in my home town of Birmingham, Alabama, where I met one of the editors for the Fresh Fiction website. As they say down here, we got to talking, and I pitched my writing/psychology blog posts as a possible guest spot for them. She was interested, and so today, I am very excited to say I have a guest post on the Fresh Fiction site.

In a recent blog interview,
someone asked me why I write fantasy. My answer was that I always wanted the
world to be more interesting than it really is. For example, one autumn morning
when I was a child, I looked out to see a leaf that looked like a little fairy
perched on a wind-tossed tree branch. I imagined it was a tiny gnome hanging on
for a wild ride. When I got older and discovered the genre of urban fantasy,
where magical elements are part of ordinary life, I was hooked.

As a psychologist, I can't help but ponder the question of
why I and others like fantasy, and especially urban fantasy, from a
psychological perspective. There's definitely the aspect of wanting more magic
in life, but I believe it goes deeper. A lot of the problems people come to me
with end up boiling down to how they handle real or perceived power imbalances,
both externally and within themselves. Urban fantasy is a great way to explore
power and how it works – and could work – in our world.

So, with that in mind, here are some reasons I write and
read urban fantasy: